Yeah, you can't really blame this on the sport. I remember reading this yesterday thinking that there had to be more to the story (USA Today only had a pretty short blurb about it), but even if there isn't, it's not really the fault of the sport.

The Italians are scary, I'll give you that. You couldn't pay me enough money to go watch a football match in Italy.http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-20025830 the guy got 16 weeks in jail, a 6 year ban from any FA football matches and a life-time ban from Leeds football ground.The thing in France was in 1996, the entire country was awash with anti-everything-not-french sentiment.

Hooliganism was quite bad in England in the 80s and 90s, but it has been reined in quite a bit thanks to draconian punishments and travel bans for known hooligans. If you are a convicted hooligan part of the punishment is you can have to give up your passport before a major international game in a different country, just to make sure you don't go making any trouble.

I tried watching the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, but I just got really frustrated by the way the game seemed to stop every 10-20 seconds, and every ~2 minutes there was an advertisement break. They managed to string out a ~80 minute game to over 3 hours, and the half-time show was 30 minutes. There seemed to be more filler than there was game. Are the normal games any different?

I sort of "get" soccer, but the downside is that it so often ends in a draw. The superfun trivia question is "which team in the last World Cup didn't lose any matches?", the answer being "New Zealand". We drew all our games, which was somehow very very exciting down here.

It's not as bad as Cricket, however. To play for 5 days and end up in a draw... Come on, if you can't figure out who won after 5 days, something's seriously wrong. If it was the most epic pairing of equal sides ever, then I could understand, but it happens all the time. When New Zealand plays India, we have no hope of a win; we just play to draw.

I enjoy just about any sport, and I like and played soccer as youth. I love american football though. The set play system is somewhat unique, and to me that adds more than enough excitement to offset the start/stop nature of it.

It's odd to me that the two sports are compared so often and seem to be polarizing among fans. Soccer is much closer to basketball and hockey than to american football.

Fetzie wrote:I tried watching the Super Bowl a couple of years ago, but I just got really frustrated by the way the game seemed to stop every 10-20 seconds, and every ~2 minutes there was an advertisement break. They managed to string out a ~80 minute game to over 3 hours, and the half-time show was 30 minutes. There seemed to be more filler than there was game. Are the normal games any different?

It is roughly 12 minutes of game action in a 60 minute of game time game spread out over 3+ hours. It is the ideal TV talking head sport. Short action, lots of replays and chance for commentary on every play.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

So the NFL sent up a trial balloon about banning academically ineligible players from attending the scouting combine. Is this a punitive action against players whose only goal is to make it to the NFL and have to go through the college system?

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.

My issue stems from:NCAA college football is basically the NFL's minor league due to bizarre draft eligibility rules.A decent subset of players have the skill to play in the NFL but not the desire to go to college, and to be honest, some wouldn't have gone to college if not for their football skills in the first place.It perpetuates the false culture of the student-athlete the NCAA wants to project but we both know the two biggest money makers in football and basketball is far from that ideal.It'll further encourage "cooking the books" for star athletes.

If there was a better alternate route for these players to get to the NFL, and NBA (the D league is a joke), I'd have less of an issue.

We live in a society where people born on third base constantly try to steal second, yet we expect people born with two strikes against them to hit a homerun on the first pitch.